The Many Shades of Blue
by Lamanth
Summary: DRABBLE COLLECTION – Blue, it was the favourite colour of them both and when anyone asked why they both gave the same answer, ‘Because it comes in so many shades.’ Kai/Ming-Ming - for Iluvbeyblade
1. Super Trouper

'**Super Trouper' by ABBA **

_I was sick and tired of everything,_  
_When I called you last night from Glasgow,_  
_All I do is eat, and sleep, and sing,_  
_Wishing every show was the last show,_  
_So imagine I was glad to hear you're coming,_  
_Suddenly it feels alright,_  
_And it's gonna be so different,_  
_When I'm on the stage tonight,_

* * *

It was there, just as it always was the sick yet empty feeling that lay like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach as she stood in the wings. The tight hot lump that blocked her throat and made panic cloud her thoughts as she wondered in this was finally it. If when she opened her mouth to sing her voice would finally fail her.

From such an early age Ming-Ming had always loved to be perform, to be the centre of attention. As a child she would spend hours playing dress up then dance around her parents hours while they laughed in delight at the entertainment she gave them.

But as she grew she discovered that there was such an intense loneliness that came from standing alone under a spotlight. It made you feel as if you were the only person in the world and it was both the best and worst feeling that she had ever known.

And the longer a tore went on, the further from her friends that she travelled the worse the feeling of total abandon grew. The elation that came with each performance would be followed by lows that would make any junky cringe with horror.

The voice called out to her from the darkness, telling her that in five minuets she would have to go out and face twenty-thousand screaming fans, and she felt the smile pull at her lips. It was always the same, they always got the number wrong for it was not just a horde of fans that waited for her, her friends where out there too.

A group of girls more colourful that a group of birds of paradise. The kindred spirits who would always be there for her no matter what. The boys who seemed to spend more time fighting with each other than just about anything else. But would fight to keep her safe no matter hoe they had to go through to do so. And him. The one person who had made himself indispensable to her, because her very existence depended on him. He was her rock, her world, her everything.

On Que. she stepped out and instantly the spotlight found her as a wall of sound greeted her. And it was all right because this time she would have no need to come down from her high.


	2. Almost Lover

'**Almost Lover' by A Fine Frenzy **

_Goodbye my almost lover,_

_Goodbye my hopeless dream,_

_I'm trying not to think about you,_

_Can't you just let me be?_

_So long my luckless romance,_

_My back is turned on you,_

_Should've known you'd bring me heartache,_

_Almost lovers always do,_

* * *

How did they do it? He asked himself as he watched her while trying his best not to. How did you let go of someone how was never really yours to begin with? Especially when that person was someone you could not separate yourself from. When they possess a gravity that constantly pulls you in how do you brake away?

Everywhere he went there she was to and every time he tried to run from her he somehow seemed to end up just going round in a circle. For he always ended up back where she was. He wanted to scream at her to let him be, to give up any claim she once might've had, but it was useless. Useless and pointless because she no longer wanted him, maybe she never really had.

Ming-Ming had been everything he had needed, everything he could never be. She was light and laughter and laughter. And somehow managed to remove a little of the loneliness that filled his world.

Without a single care she had once taken his hands in hers and danced through crowed streets towards the beach where she had made him walk bare foot in the sand. With laughter in her voice she would sing lullabies in soft French.

Her fingertips would walk across his pale skin and there would be such a sweet sadness in her eyes, that it would almost brake his heart. And then it did brake.

As swiftly as she had come into his life she was gone. And he couldn't help but ask himself how he had made it so easy from her to walk right in and out of his life. He had wanted her happiness and for that reason if no other he did not try to entice her back to him.

He had never wanted to see her unhappy and had hoped that she would want the same for him. and perhaps she did, it was just that she did not understand that having her so close without being able to reach out and touch her was the worst torture she could have inflicted upon him.

No matter what he did she was always on his mind. He could not go to the ocean without thinking of times he had been there with her. No matter how far or fast he drove down empty moonlit streets he could not out run her memory. And when he woke in the mornings hers was the face he longed to see.

She had healed his heart only to brake it once more.


	3. Apologise

'**Apologise' (Feat. One Republic) by Timbaland **

_I loved you with a firein red, now it's turning blue,_  
_And you say,_  
_"Sorry" like the angel heaven let me think was you,_  
_But I'm afraid..._  
_It's too late to apologise, it's too late,_  
_I said it's too late to apologise, it's too late,_

* * *

She can hear him behind her and he is so much faster and stronger than she will ever be. Even though she knows that it is useless she keeps running, forcing her legs to pump faster, the ground falling away under her feet. Only when he grabs her and forcibly holds her in place does she admit defeat and cease her frantic flight.

She can feel her heart as it brakes a little more. She needs him, she knows it. She always has and always will for he is more vital than the air that she breathes. But there is something that she needs more. A life of her own. It is a painful and terrifying truth but she knows that she has to live her own life rather than just slowly dying in the shadow of his.

And if she stays she knows that is all she will ever be. A mere shadow, following him around like some poor whipped dog always hoping for some show of affection.

He reaches out to cup her cheek, intending to use his thumb to brush away the tears that mar the otherwise flawless creamy skin. But his fingertips barely graze her skin before she slaps his hand away. There is a look on her face such as he has never seen before and he reels back away from her frozen topaz stare.

She looks almost like an angel, the wild azure hair flying around her like some abstract mane and those extraordinary eyes that don't seem like the could be real. But there is something wrong with her, behind the veil of heavenly perfection there is something that is broken beyond repair.

He thinks of a fragile porcelain doll; chipped and nicked with a ragged crack through its forehead. A once beloved toy tossed aside when the illusion of perfection is revealed for what it really is. A simple glamour with no more substance than the wind.

"Too little, too late." Her whisper cuts through the air with more force than even the harshest of screams. "False apologise aren't enough any more."

"Just tell me one thing." He goes to touch her arm, but she is already turning to face him and he quickly pulls his hand back. "Please tell me, is there someone else?"

"Oh Kai," Her laughter is low and soft but also inexplicably sad. "Of course there's someone else. There always has been you were always just too wrapped up in yourself to see it."

"Who?" Even as he asks something in him tells him that he already knows what her answer will be and he is just too late realizing it.

"Me, Kai." And her eyes condemn him for the blind fool that he is. "It's always been me."

She offers him a pitying smile before turning her back on him and walking away for the last time. His vision clouds as he watches her finger shrink before vanishing from his sight completely. It's just not in him no matter much he wishes she could change, he can't cry over her.


	4. Don't Stop Believin'

'**Don't Stop Believin'' by Journey**

_A singer in a smoky room,_  
_A smell of wine and cheap perfume,_  
_For a smile they can share the night,_  
_It goes on and on and on and on,_  
_Strangers waiting,_  
_Up and down the boulevard,_  
_Their shadows searching in the night,_  
_Streetlight people,_  
_Living just to find emotion,_  
_Hiding somewhere in the night,_

* * *

Kai didn't know what it was that had made him enter the small, smoke filled club, or what it was that had made him stay for more then the one drink he had planed on having. All he knew was that he was glad that he had. Even through the hazy air with the smell of alcohol and cheap perfume filling his noes he had only need one look at the singer on the small stage.

She was beautiful, exotic colouring and large dark eyes that had hardly left him. Her voice was rich and smooth like expensive dark chocolate, the smoked kind that he had hated as a child but now adored. She was different from anyone he had ever seen, and maybe that was it, she was so new and unknown.

Whatever the reason he knew there must be one for he didn't normally sit making eyes at a girl across a crowed bar.

There must be a reason for it, Ming-Ming decided as she once again tried and failed to take her eyes from the stranger seated at the bar. This just wasn't like her.

She'd been working at the club for close on six months and never before had she just stood on stage singing her songs to just one person. But that was just what she was doing. From the moment she had set eyes on the pale stranger she had been captivated and not just by the way he looked, even if he did look good enough to eat. But also by the way he was looking at her.

Effortlessly she finished one song and slipped into the next, glad that she didn't need to pay too much attention to what she was doing. The set was familiar and her concentration was shot to pieces. For the first time since she had started work there Ming-Ming found she could not wait for her time on stage to be over.

He was waiting for her, as she knew he would be, her drink already sitting next to his because just as she had known he would wait he had known she would come. The first drink was soon followed by a second and then a third not far behind it. And then they were leaving, their hands tightly clasped as the moved towards the door, fingers closely intertwined.

It should have seemed wrong or at the very least strange for they were complete strangers who had know one other for less than an hour. The looks they got from the people they passed said it wouldn't last past the night. Yet somehow they both believed it would last far longer.


	5. You're My Best Friend

'**You're My Best Friend' by Queen **

_You're the first one,_  
_When things turn out bad,_  
_You know I'll never be lonely,_  
_You're my only one,_  
_And I love the things,_  
_I really love the things that you do,_  
_You're my best friend,_  
_Ooo you make me live,_  
_I'm happy at home,_  
_You're my best friend,_

* * *

"Do you know why I love you so much?" His voice a slow and lazy, matching the rhythm of the hand he was leisurely running up and down the spine of the girl with him.

"Of course, it's because I am without doubt simply the best person on the planet, ever." Ming-Ming said with a small yawn as she shifted her position, half-lying next to half on top of him.

"Oddly enough, no." Kai halted the movement of his hand, using it effectively to hold the girl in place and stop her fidgeting.

"Because in spite of how amazingly wonderful I am I have no ego at all?" Even the innocent expression and the fluttering eyelashes weren't enough to make that lie believable.

"I'm not even going to comment on that one." The Russian said, his voice taking an up swing of amusement as he spoke.

"Blue is your favourite colour and my hair is the best shade of blue that there is." She reached out and flicked away one of the bangs that always fell into his eyes. "Azure rules all."

"It's your favourite colour too, but no, it's not because of your hair," Catching sight of the pout forming on her lips he quickly added, "Which I do love as well you know." He tugged one of her ringlets straight and then watched as it bounced back into a perfect curl.

"Well in that case," She tilting her head slight to one side while her fingers played a soft tattoo on his chest. "It has to be because of that time I beat Tala in an arm wrestling contest."

"And yet again you are wrong, hardly surprising since you're hardly ever right." Kai pressed a light kiss to her forehead to negate any sting his words may have held. "Besides it was hardly what you'd call a fair right, the bloody idiot had crack in his radius. Not to mention the dislocated shoulder and two broken fingers on the other side."

"So what if it wasn't fair? And you say that about a lot of things you know. This isn't fair, that isn't fair, I can't help but wonder what your basis for comparison is." Ming-Ming smiled serenely at him, her eyes half closed in happiness. "Anyway he agreed."

"Yeah he did," He shook his head ruefully at his friend's stupidity. "I said he was a bloody idiot."

"Not a very nice thing to call your best friend." The singer said absently while she waved her index finger under his nose.

"He's not my best friend." She pulled back slightly the better to frown in confusion at him. "You dope, that's what I've been trying to say, the reason I love you so much. It's because you're my best friend."

"So if I'm your best friend as well as being your girl friend and the best lay you've ever had," Kai rolled his eyes, trust her to corrupt a romantic moment. "How come you always hog the duvet?"

"And now how's the one complaining that life isn't fair?" Laughter caused his voice to drop half an octave, but when she tugged at the bed covers he let her have them. After all it was easier that way rather than fighting over the one he'd let her have her way and then just pull them both back to him.

The duvet and Ming-Ming.


	6. When I Look in Your Eyes

'**When I Look in Your Eyes' by Rex Harrison**

_In your eyes I see the deepness of the sea,_  
_I see the deepness of the love,_  
_The love I feel you feel for me._  
_Autumn comes, summer dies,_  
_I see the passing of the years in your eyes,_  
_And when we part they'll be no tears, no goodbyes,_  
_I'll just look into your eyes._

* * *

He has never been very good at this sort of thing, never had any reason to be, but as he stares at the girl standing before him all he can do is wish he knew what the right thing to say is. But there is no manual for situations like these and she is just as clueless as he is. And so they both just simply stand there in the middle of a half empty airport, while outside the chill autumn wind blows clouds across the stars.

Between the pair of them he doubts they have had more then half a dozen people they have ever truly cared about. And if you don't care for anyone how can you learn to say goodbye. But he has to say goodbye to her, now, the time is quickly slipping past and he still has no idea what to say to her.

In a few minuets the call will come, and she will board a plane and fly out of his life forever. It was a joint decision, but looking back he can't remember how it was that they came to agree upon it. He doesn't want to let her go any more than she wants to leave him, but they weren't safe together.

Neither of them had ever really been what could be called safe, but together they were a destructive force that was unlike anything any of their friends had ever known. But looking at her now all he can think is that she still looks just the same as she did four years ago. A lost, frightened child, who doesn't really understand what's going on.

Only her eyes have changed, he can see the changes of four years in their warm honey depths. Looking deep into her eyes he can't quite explain all of what he sees there. It is such a painful, complex mixture of emotions. When they said that eyes were the windows to the soul they didn't know how right they were. And she could never hide anything from him, even when she would try so hard to do so.

And he realised that there are no words for what he wants to say and there never can be. He steps closer to her, rough callused hands going to her cheeks as he gently tilts her head back. Her small hands grip his wrists, the warm bronze of her skin a sharp contrast to his marble paler. For a moment he almost stops breathing as he becomes almost lost in her eyes. For it is not just sadness he sees in them, he can see the love too.

Love, something he had once thought he would go his whole life without knowing and it is what makes the moment harder still. Slowly he leans in and presses a soft kiss to her forehead, before for releasing her face and starting to walk away. For a moment she tries to hold onto him but it is hopeless, and he easily slips out of her reach.

He doesn't allow himself to stop. Doesn't flutter in his stride. Doesn't even so much as glance back over his shoulder until he is almost at the exit. When he does he sees her standing just where he left her, because though she is the one leaving he knew she didn't have the strength to let go.


	7. Fire

'**Fire' by Augustana **

_There you were in your black dress,  
Moving slow to the sadness,  
I could watch you dance for hours,  
I could take you by my side,_

_Fire burning me up,_  
_Desire taking me so much higher,_  
_And leaving me,_

* * *

It was over, finally over. After the days and weeks of fighting and worrying and nerve wrenching uncertainty it was finished. They had weathered the storm, walked through hellfire and brimstone and from the ashes they would have to build new lives for themselves. The distraction was over, the smoke was clearing but in its wake it left scares that might never heal. The events that had transpired had irrevocable changed them all.

From his vantage point, atop the tall stone pillar, he surveyed the damage. The stadium was ruined, broken beyond repair. To his cool crimson gaze it resembled some huge animal that had been gutted by its hunter and then just left to die. Only hours ago it had been filled with life, screaming fans had packed the building, their life-force like a living entity that had filled it. But now it was a hollow and empty shell. Dead.

The roof was all but gone, the steal framework bowed and twisted by the same heat that had melted the glass into scalding rain. Bricks littered what once had been the parking lot. They had been spewed forth when the North wall gave way to the massive power surge it had tried to contain.

It was death, this building, he thought. In some way it killed all those who came into contact with it, and only some managed to rise from the flames and live once again. It had taken his life from him, his soul, his spirit. The pain of that loss was a hot throbbing hollow that filled his left breast.

He was glad that the place was now as broken as it had made him. It would be torn down and obliterated from the face of the earth and he for one would not be sorry to see it go. Nothing good could have come from it; it was a place of endless sorrow and broken dreams.

With one last glance at the devastation he turned to leave, and then the movement amidst the stillness, a vivid splash of colour amidst the rubble caught his eye and held him in place.

Her arms were slightly raised, a cross between a ballet pose and that of someone trying to keep their balance on a tightrope. She half walked, half danced through the destruction, delicately picking her way through fallen stone and melted plastic. The fabric of her black dress flutter softly against the backs of her thighs as she moved to a rhythm only she could hear.

It was incongruous to see that one bright spark of life amidst so much death and destruction. Part of him wanted to turn his back on the sight of the dancing girl, to walk away and leave her to whatever happy madness filled her head. But it was over ruled by another part of him, a part that had no root in logic or reason.

Jumping from the pillar was easy, even if the act hurt more than it once would have. Easy too, was working his through the crumbled brickwork to where the girl swayed between piles of fallen stone. Up close he could see that her black dress was mottled with dust and that her normally perfectly styled hair had come half loose from its ties, making her look more that a little insane.

She didn't start as he suddenly stepped into her line of vision from behind a half-fallen mock Grecian pillar. Arms spread wide like the wings of a bird as she arched forward, one leg raised so her foot was suspended over the fifteen-foot drop of what had once been a beydish. Posed on the edge it would only take one wrong move and she would fall. Not far true enough, but with the debris that littered its bottom she would easily end with broken bones or even a snapped neck.

For a moment the thought entered his head that it would be all too easy to simply reach out and push her, to snuff out the one bright spot of life that still inhabited the stadium. But just a easy would be snag her hand and pull her away from the edge. Then, seemingly almost faster than he could see, she was standing before him, a slight smile playing about her lips and the words he had meant to say turned to dust on his tongue.

"I'm glad it's over." She said braking the silence, but then her faint smile faded, and large honey eyes turned to fix beseechingly on his face. "It is over, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's over." He didn't know why he said it or why opened his arms to her. Most of all he didn't know why the pain in his heart seemed to lessen slightly when she stepped into his embrace and leaned her head on his shoulder. "It's all over now."

"That's good," She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder like a kitten in search of comfort. "Now something new can begin."

"Yes," He lowered his head so that his chin rested on the top of hers, her hair silky soft against his skin. "There comes a point when we all are in need of a chance to start again."


End file.
